Fraser Dahdouh: Early Career Promoter Fund
Concise Project Description : Our 2nd Seasoning Festival will platform our resident artists with a brief to push experimental side of their sound alongside first class underground UK talent
Biog : Growing up in Stroud, you can be quietly haunted by the imprints of the dance music that was largely absent from the town we came of age in – just in time to see our underground nightclub shuttered. Friends’ parents were often involved in the festival circuits in some way and wild stories of raves blend with the local folklore when shared by older generations in the smoking areas of boozers. Seasoning formed in 2022 as an attempt to try and string together some of the disparate parts of a scene that remained in Stroud and give a platform to a fresh generation of talented DJs, MCs, and producers – encouraging a shift away from genre-policing and toward a blending of play-styles and selections of bass-forward and progressive music. Whilst the financials of DIY parties have always been hard graft, culturally, Seasoning clicked straight away – a rave-forward sound in an inclusive setting, giving DJs freedom to stray into leftfield, psychedelic selections presented on best-in-class audio backed by a cracking party crew is always going to be fun. The surprise to me has been the solidly cross-generational crowds that come out rain-or-shine to rave with us and their open-mindedness to cutting-edge club music in Stroud and beyond.After a raucous debut in 2024, this year we are pushing our booking programme for Seasoning Festival further and trying to creatively connect scenes we’ve worked in between Liverpool, London, and Bristol back through Stroud. Seasoning Festival will present 14.5hrs of music across 3 stages connecting some of the most exciting underground DJs and producers nationally with local talent. Progressive stage designs powered by DIY soundsystems and engaging participatory elements help to recontextualise a varied programme of the best dance music along a thumping continuum, hoping to do some justice to the legacy.